9 Terrible Video Games With AWESOME Stories

3. The Witcher

Of all the glow-ups in gaming history, Geralt and the Witcher series in general might have the most impressive.

Literally, going from a smaller-scale title brought about from a licensing deal with creator Andrzej Sapkowski, CDPR would work themselves half to death bulking out the experience into a semi-open world RPG for The Witcher 2, then one of the finest RPGs of all time in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

It all had to start somewhere though, and the original Witcher's gameplay is a slog from front to back. Yes, there's depth to potion making and sword combat, but this is for hardcore fans only, as the real positive is storytelling.

Witcher 1 is where series' veteran Doug Cockle began flexing his pipes as Geralt, and from moment one, you can tell he was born to play the role.

All of the Witcher games follow a timeline post-book, but the original features a ton of references and recreations of iconic arcs from the source material. It's this stuff, interacting with the Continent through an amnesiac Geralt and meeting everyone from Triss to Vesemir for the first time, that is the only reason you should ever play today.